


In the Wake of All We've Lost

by codenametargeter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: General Hux with a Beard, I have a strange fascination with Hux and Leia interactions, Leia Organa deserves better than this, Not actively Kylux but they're mentioned, Probably post Episode IX
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenametargeter/pseuds/codenametargeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last person that General Leia Organa ever expected to see after the Resistance defeated the First Order was General Hux.  Or at least he was a General.  Now he's just a courier for the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Wake of All We've Lost

The war was over. The Resistance was victorious over the First Order and peace had been restored to the galaxy. It was everything that Leia had fought to achieve. Twice now. By all accounts, she should feel happy, thrilled even.

Instead she felt nothing. 

They’d saved the galaxy again but at what cost? Her husband had died in the early days just after he’d come back to her and her son…she’d lost her son twice. The first time had been when Snoke had seduced him to the dark side and he’d ceased to be Ben Organa Solo. The second had been Kylo Ren had fallen in the final battle. There was only so much loss a person could take.

As the celebrations raged on across the planet, she found herself slipping away from the crowds and towards the quietest cantina she could find. Even amidst the chaos, refuges like this one existed for people who just wanted to be alone with their thoughts and a drink. She found a booth in the back and had knocked back a shot of something and promptly ordered another drink. One or two faces showed a flash of recognition but everyone else just kept their heads down. Or maybe no one believed that someone like Leia Organa would be in a place like this.

“Hello General.”

Reluctantly, she raised her head to look at whoever had dared to break the cantina’s silent code. At first glance, she didn’t recognize the tall, bearded young man who stood before her dressed in typical spacer-wear that had clearly seen better days. It wasn’t until he lowered the hood of his cloak that she made the connection and a blaster appeared in her hand, pointed straight at him. “General Hux.” 

The former First Order general held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I just want to talk.”

Leia didn’t blink. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you where you stand.”

“Because you believe in the process of democracy,” Hux replied smoothly.

“You destroyed five planets. No court would find you innocent.”

“Unlikely, no.”

“You need a better reason.”

“I’m here on behalf of your son.”

The sentence made Leia freeze and then lower her blaster a few inches. “How do I know this isn’t some desperate last attempt?”

“If it was, I’d be where the crowds are,” he pointed out. “But it’s not. Use the Force and check if you don’t believe me. You can do that, no? Ren always said that you could.”

Frowning, she concentrated for a moment, stretching out with the Force but sensed no deceit from him. “Are you armed?”

“A vibroblade in my boot and a blaster in my bag.” When she raised both eyebrows at him, he shrugged. “I’m not foolish enough to walk around this city unarmed.” Her silence prompted a sigh from him. “May I sit? We’re starting to attract stares.”

Leia nodded, gesturing with her blaster before lowering it completely but keeping it within easy reach. She waited for him to get settled before speaking again. “We thought you’d gone down with the Finalizer.”

“Clearly not.”

“And yet you’re not trying to rally the First Order for another strike.” 

“No, General,” Hux replied, mouth a thin line, “I know when I’m beaten. The First Order is gone. In decades, someone may try to take revenge for us and rise again with a new name but it will not be with me at its head or even in its ranks.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “People like you don’t just walk away from a cause they were raised to believe in.”

“I’d prefer that this war had ended with your little Resistance being crushed out existence,” he said bluntly. “There were plans in place to deal with Snoke once we’d won. I was starting to get quite fond of the sound of Emperor Hux. I still believe I could rule this galaxy but I’m also a realist. The best I can hope for now is a quiet life out of prison.”

Everything about this meeting felt off to her. The disheveled man before her didn’t line up with the fanatical General she’d seen in holorecordings and not just because he was dressed so casually and his hair was an absolute mess. She wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to get on planet much less track her down to this specific cantina. All of these questions whirled in her head and she took a drink to try and steady herself. “You said this was about Ben.”

“Ah. Yes.” Hux turned away for a moment to rummage in his bag before pulling out a data card and a small black pouch. “These were amongst his things. The data card was to be delivered in event of his death. And the other… I thought you would want to have it.”

Leia’s breath caught as she fumbled with the pouch fastenings for a moment before dumping its contents into her palm. Her eyes shut as her fingers curled around the familiar necklace, shutting out the rest of the galaxy for a moment. It had been years since she’d allowed herself to entertain the thought that Kylo had kept any reminders of his past life. He’d shed his name and his heritage; there had been no reason to think he would have kept this and yet her fingers were curled around a pendant that contained one of the few remaining pieces of her home world.

“It’s a shard of Alderaan, isn’t it?”

She nodded, opening her eyes again.

Hux nodded almost conversationally. “He kept it secret. I only saw it once. I think he was protecting it from Snoke.”

“How do you have it?”

“He never took it with him on missions. He had some odd fit of poetic phrasing the one time I saw him with it and went on about how too much of it was gone to risk it getting lost in battle.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

He shrugged resignedly. “There are protocols for personal effects… I won’t bore you with the details but I managed to obtain mine and his before the Finalizer was destroyed. As for why I had them…” He sighed. “Ren and I were involved.”

Leia choked on air. “You were what?”

“Involved. Together. Sleeping with each other. Call it what you will.” 

He said the words so casually but she didn’t need the Force to pick up on the repressed fondness in his voice and eyes and nor did she need it to spot the quiet grief. “You cared about him.”

“Of course I did!” Hux snapped. “You Rebels… so damn self-righteous that you think you have a monopoly on anything you consider good in this galaxy.”

Taken back by the force behind his disdain, Leia didn’t reply for a long moment, reevaluating what she thought she knew about the man before her. Her expression remained blank as a part of her mind silently chided herself for falling back so easily into the us-or-them mindset. She’d lived for too long to forget that actual people resided behind the faces of her enemies. Finally, she settled on saying, “I’m just glad to hear that Ben’s entire life wasn’t hate and anger.”

“The Supreme Leader would’ve certainly preferred it that way,” he remarked before making to stand. Before he had so much as braced his hands on the table, she had her blaster pointed at him once more and he sighed. “We’re back to this again?”

“You’re a war criminal,” Leia said evenly. “I lost friends when you destroyed the Hosnian system.”

“At the will of the Supreme Leader.”

“You gave the order.”

“As you so astutely noted, we were at war.”

“Billions of innocent people died.”

Hux exhaled again. “I didn’t have to come here. I could’ve tossed both of those in the nearest trash compactor but I didn’t out of respect for Ren’s wishes. The least you can do to return the favor is let me disappear.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If I do, where will you go now?”

Hux smiled wryly. “Come now, General. You can’t expect me to tell you that.”

“What will you do?”

He shrugged. “Find a planet that’s never heard of the First Order and finally figure out if I’m good for anything but war. Maybe even get myself a pet.” 

Carefully, Leia weighed the options before her. By all rights, she should stun him and drag him back to Republic headquarters to be tossed in a cell. There was nothing that could ever excuse genocide. A mother’s sentimentality tugged at her heart and—“Go. Before I change my mind.”

He wasted no time in rising to his feet. “Thank you.”

She spoke again before he could take more than two steps away. “Hux.” His only response was to raise an eyebrow. “Did you love my son?”

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “It seems pointless to answer that now, doesn’t it?” Before she could press him to reply, Hux flipped his hood up. “Goodbye, General. The galaxy won’t see me again.”

Leia sat there unmoving for long minutes after the man vanished. She suspected that she would regret her decision later, in fact she was already starting to regret it now but what was done was done. At the very least, she believed him when he said he had no intention of rallying the First Order again and that he simply wanted to vanish into obscurity. If he was lying… well, no amount of sentiment for her dead son was going to stop her from personally supervising the hunt for General Hux. 

With a jolt, she recalled the datacard that sat before her. A part of her wanted to delay seeing whatever message it might contain. There was no way of knowing what Kylo Ren had put on that datacard but either way; it was the last link she had to her son. If she watched, it that would mean acknowledging that her entire family truly was gone. A moment later she decided that there was no point in prolonging the pain and pulled out her datapad. It took only a few moments before a small hologram version of her son materialized before her. The sight of his familiar yet scarred face made her heart ache. 

“Mother,” the hologram started before immediately pausing. “Mom. If you’re watching this then I’m dead. I don’t know how it happened… maybe it was Rey or Uncle Luke… but I’m dead. So congratulations. You’ve got one less embarrassment in your closet when you run for office again even if everyone will know you had a dark sider for a son. Don’t expect me to apologize that or for anything else.” Ben sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “No wait. That’s not true. I… if I could, I’d beg your forgiveness for what I did to Dad. I shouldn’t have---I thought… I thought it would help—that it would stop the call of the light but it didn’t. Nothing makes sense anymore but I know it’s too late for me to change. I don’t think I can; not with Snoke—” The hologram paused, looking down as his voice slid briefly into a lower register. “That wasn’t your fault either. The Supreme Leader cannot be—” He broke off again. “Death is what I deserve. I know that now. I won’t make it easy for whoever does it but I accept it. I just hope that it won’t hurt the only person I still love that’s left in the galaxy.” An uncomfortable expression crossed Ben’s face as if the sentiments he was conveying caused him physical pain. “Goodbye, Mother.”

With that, the hologram vanished, leaving Leia alone with her thoughts and the tears that had begun to run down her cheeks. Quickly, she wiped them away with a shirtsleeve. Alderaan had been gone for almost 40 years but those of the royal house did not grieve openly in public. 

Straightening, she squared her shoulders with renewed resolve, tucking the datapad back into her pocket. She was alone in this galaxy now but it was not as painful of a prospect as it had seemed before. Her son was deceased but at least now she knew that there had been something left of the boy she’d raised. Ben was still dead but he’d not been entirely gone. The thought shouldn’t have comforted her and yet it did. 

Knocking back the last swallow of her drink, Leia clasped the necklace around her neck, letting the rock pendant settle against her chest before she rose to her feet. Her sorrow remained, as it always would, but now she felt something. Organas endured and life would carry on.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to say that I actively do not condone a Kylo Ren who doesn't get redeemed. I'm going to be super sad if he doesn't end up on the light side by the end of the trilogy but for the fic to work, I had to leave it ambiguous as to whether or not he pulled a Vader. But that's neither here nor there. (You can come bother me on tumblr at chaosbria where I will happily type long essays about Skywalkers and redemption at you.) 
> 
> This was written for my Star Wars Twitter gang who have deemed me a feels terrorist. I happily accept that title and I hope you all enjoy this latest stab to the heart and if it wasn't one... I'll have to try harder next time. <3


End file.
